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So the Geordies return with their third album titled Quicken The Heart. Music experts had already put this album into the flop category before it had been released due to the downturn in popularity to alternative and “Indie” artists as seen by the poor charting of Franz Ferdinand, Starsailor and Doves. Will this suppress the downturn or just keep the fashion going?

Quicken The Heart starts with the pre-release download of Wraithlike, this is a quicker paced, more guitar based track, a good opener but in all fairness nothing out the ordinary. This is followed by The Penultimate Clinch which is the first of a deeper and mature sounding Maximo Park stance. The lyrics, in Maximo Park's style, are of real class, nothing shoddy like you can find in some generic bands. The use of vocabulary is fully functional to bring real depth to each and every song. This is a real forte that was used in Our Earthly Pleasures.

The third track is the début single from the album named The Kids Are Sick Again; a very catchy and characteristic single. The fourth track, A Cloud Of Mystery brings back the newer Maximo theme of maturing, which is continued by Calm. A real feature is the maturity of the lyrics, instrument use and lead singer; Paul Smith. When compared from the first album A Certain Trigger it is a real contrast. As time has passed away the band have learnt more then basic music to more complex techniques, especially when you consider Paul Smith wasn’t auditioned for the lead singer role, but was actually spotted by the rest of the band on a karaoke machine!
The rest of the album follows a similar suite, so if you don’t like similarity in an album this is not one to focus on, but it is still top quality music. It would be nice if a little bit of A Certain Trigger had been re-introduced into this album, but a band cannot stand still, and that for sure is one thing Maximo Park does not do, always changing little features.

On last point is that it is one album which grows on you like a rash, but this rash is one you love, like a lovebite rash!

Pick of the pops is Let's Get Clinical.

Quicken The Heart as a whole album is shaded out by the older material, but still receives a:

8/10

Reviewed by Paddy